Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…

Saturday, August 01, 2015

A woman at the centre of a paedophile ring setting children up as “sexual playthings” over more than a decade has been found guilty

A woman at the centre of a paedophile ring which set children up as
“sexual playthings” over more than a decade has been found guilty of
offences including rape, conspiracy to rape and inciting a child to
engage in sexual activity

Ten people – six women and four men – had been on trial accused of
the abuse of five children. Marie Black, from Norwich, was alleged to
have been at the centre of the abuse.

Black, 34, denied 26 charges during a three-month trial at Norwich
crown court, but on Monday the jury convicted her on all but three
counts after 19 hours of deliberations. She sobbed uncontrollably in the
dock as the verdicts were delivered and was heard saying: “I’ve been
stitched up.”

… Opening the trial, prosecutor Angela Rafferty QC had said Black,
previously known as Marie Adams, played an instrumental role in using
the children as “sexual playthings”. The abuse, which is said to have
happened in and around Norwich and London, included forcing the children
to have sex with one another.

On some occasions, the adults threw parties and played card games to
decide who would abuse which child, Rafferty said. In interviews the
victims described how they were abused in front of one another and other
adults. Some of the abuse involved children’s toys, including Barbie
dolls.

They said the abuse became so routine that the victims came to accept
it as normal. One of the male victims said: “There would be parties and
they would do some games where the boys were in one room with the men
and the girls were in another with the women. The adults would have a
card game and the winner would get to choose a boy to start touching
their private parts and then hurt them afterwards.”

… All of the defendants denied abusing the children, saying it simply
did not happen. During the trial it emerged that police had launched an
investigation into the conduct of Norfolk county council social workers
involved in the case.